A/N: Thanks to my reviewers & to those who added this to their favorites and alerts - love ya guys! Epov's gonna be tamer than Bella's, but then whose isn't, right?
3. Silence - Edward's pov
I had to get out of there. She would be the death of me, if that were even possible. My erection was so uncomfortable I was sure it could chisel an exit right through the aged bricks of the classroom. In fact, the hardness of my cock was what kept me there seated the whole hour beside this devil temptress.
I would never have dreamed it possible.
It was a day like any other when during lunch I was inundated, as always, with the campuses' mental consciousness. I forced the buzz of inane human chatter away when my sister Alice's inner voice called out to me.
She's looking at you again. Oh, she is so checking you out, Edward.
I rolled my eyes, used to this unnecessary attention. It was bad enough I could read it in the mind of all the human females, but Alice was being so insistent on bringing it to my attention while we were seated at our lunch table with our other sibs, pretending to eat the unappetizing garbage on our trays.
I already knew who "she" was without having to look. Her name was Isabella Swan, and I'd already seen her in the minds of too many adolescent boys today. She was new. Long brown hair, brown eyes, thin. Nice face, I supposed. Nevertheless, she was new, and in a tiny town like this one, new equaled special.
My thoughts were interrupted then by an image in Alice's mind of this girl, aggressive as a cheetah with her hands on the waistband of my jeans, unbuttoning them with capable fingers. I didn't recognize the room we were in, but the only light was from the moon shining through the window. I was kneeling over her as she tugged the denim down past my hips, and as I saw the desire on her face, I felt the beginnings of a semi.
Closing my eyes, I shook my head to push away that image. "Stop it, Alice. That's not funny."
She looked surprised. "Do you think I did that on my own?" Alice was now smirking.
Emmett looked very interested. "What did you see?"
"Nothing," I said.
"See that new girl over there?" she said to Emmett, pointing her eyes toward the female at the lunch table a few feet away. Uninterested, Rosalie glanced over, but then rolled her eyes. Emmett's head leaned to the side slightly, and he nodded. "Yeah," Alice confirmed.
"A human – no fucking way!"
"That's right," I said. No fucking way. I did not...would not fuck humans. The results could be disastrous, and if we were trying to maintain our quiet existence here, then inserting my vampire cock into some human and breaking her in half would not accomplish that.
In fact, I'd never even allowed myself to consider it. There had been too many fantasies I'd read in the other girls' minds- some really twisted ones. But, really it was just out of the question. Besides, I'd not met one human yet who had even appealed to me. In my one hundred and three years of existence, I'd met many vampire females who had. Tanya, who led a similar vegetarian lifestyle to ours, feeding only on the blood of animals, lived in Alaska. She was always ready for the taking. She was beautiful, too, and even good company sometimes, but the truth was, I couldn't see past the sweet entrance between her thighs.
That was the problem.
Everyone but me in our family was nicely paired off. Our father and my creator, Carlisle, had Esme, our mother for all intents and purposes. Rosalie, who was originally created for me, was so bitchy that it seemed less likely for her to find a mate than anyone else, yet she'd found my adopted brother Emmett as a human before he was nearly mauled to death by a bear. And for them it's been bliss. Alice and Jasper had joined us years later, already proclaimed soul mates. Being without a mate was a little unsettling. Sort of a seventh wheel…
I couldn't help it. There wasn't a single vampiress that I would have liked to keep for eternity. It's important; if you're going to spend the rest of your life with someone, it should be the right one, should it not?
Alice thought I was too picky, and she should know better. Esme and Carlisle just wanted me to be happy and didn't make a fuss about my extracurricular activities. Emmett liked the details, living through me vicariously – vampire, though he was, he was still male.
Since I could read the ridiculous fantasies in my classmates' minds, I decided back in September that it would be a good idea for Emmett and Rosalie to discuss my "girlfriend" in Alaska loud enough for them to hear. It wasn't a perfect excuse, but at least the ideas that I was gay had been exorcised. Some of these boys at this school had ideas of their own.
A flash in Alice's mind tore its way into my consciousness again, only now the girl was trailing her fingertips down my arm and then tugged it forward to her naked breasts. They were so creamy looking, and her touch was so warm that I could not resist touching her, feeling the soft mound of her flesh against my hand as her breath caught by the ice of my grip.
"Stop," I said again to Alice, but it came out much hoarser than it should have. And Emmett began to laugh. It wasn't just the visual of the girl's bare torso and black lace panties…I could actually feel the heat of her body…dear God.
"Seriously, like, don't waste your time," I heard Jessica Stanley telling her, and I could feel the new girl's gaze fixed on me.
And while Jessica's thoughts discounted the possibility that I could even consider thinking of her table mate, I still felt the weight of the Swan girl's eyes, holding me, peeling off every article of clothing.
I didn't want to look. With a mind of their own, my eyes turned to look at her, and I found myself desperate to hear what she was thinking. Isabella Swan's long mahogany hair hung down past her shoulders, dark against her ivory complexion. Her eyes reminded me of milk chocolate, melting me with the flashback of desire from Alice's vision. I could hear the voices all around, but there was no transmission coming from her. It was as though I was tuned in to the wrong frequency. There was something else about her. She wasn't intimidated like the others. Despite their irrational fantasies, humans instinctively feared us, but this girl not only dared to get my attention, but was ballsy enough to keep it. As her eyes met mine, the curves of her eyebrows rose, and the smile on her lips formed the word "hi."
Knocked off my game, I turned away. Emmett continued to laugh, covering his mouth to block out his loudness as Rosalie jabbed him with her elbow. I couldn't hear the girl's thoughts. And there was something about that that was very …hot.
Where did she get all that confidence? I'd never known a human to look at me that way, so sure of herself, as though she were the hunter and I were the prey.
Damn, that was fucking hot.
I exhaled a hard breath and insisted to Alice that she stop the projector. I was already going to have to wait for a couple minutes before leaving the table.
Who was this girl? And why was her mind so silent?
My eyes stole another look in her direction, and I willed her thoughts to become audible in my mind. It didn't work. She was chatting with Angela and Jessica now, and I could hear her voice as she talked about her day, her new life. Mike Newton was now reveling in the fact that she shared his biology class next period.
This was crazy. I told myself to get over it - she was just like every other ordinary human girl in this school. Thinking about it would only drive me crazy. Clearly I was distracted, or maybe there were just too many people around, and that's why I couldn't hear her thoughts.
But I could see her. And as our group filed out of the cafeteria, dumping out our ridiculously full trays, I noted with dismay the frown on the Swan girl's lips as I exited.
As much as I hadn't wanted to care, my anticipation to see her had grown as I spotted Mike Newton escorting her into my biology class. Mr. Banner pointed in my direction toward the back of the room, and when she walked past the fan, the air swept her hair up against her cheek. The perfect trajectory plowed a heady whiff of mind-blowing scent toward me, practically stunning me with the force of a tazer.
I had never smelled anything like it – though I had resisted the blood of humans for eighty years, this unsuspecting girl's blood ignited a tremendous thirst, a gut-wrenching yearning, an uncompromising hunger…and that was before she took her seat beside me. Blinded by the unreasonable temptation to suck every drop of blood from her body, I swallowed back the dry ache in my throat. There was only one thing that would quell this drought, and I could already imagine how sweet she would taste as I drained the magic liquid from her body.
It took all my strength to resist killing her, to force away the despicable urge from my consciousness…there ended up being another allure, more sinister than the first. If I wasn't mistaken…and I wasn't…she was baiting me.
Though I couldn't hear what she was thinking, it was obvious she was trying to get my attention. It was a moot point. My attention was on her, whether I liked it or not. Her back was arched up against the chair, while not once meeting my eyes, she presented me a view of her chest. Though certainly not bare, I could see the rounded contours through the tightness of her shirt, imagining the smooth skin underneath flush against my chest, my fingertips brushing along the stiffness of her peaks…so warm. Alice's vision had not helped matters.
I was dizzy with thirst, heady with the suffocating longing for her body. Her breath came out low suddenly, in tiny gasps. Listening to today's lecture was out of the question from the point she walked in the room. But now, she seemed to be moving…wriggling around in her seat underneath our lab table. This puzzled me at first. Was she itchy? But as I studied with fascination the look on her face, I could see those wide brown eyes had glazed over, and her pelvis seemed to be…rubbing against the chair…
Dear God.
Fortunately we were in the back of the room, but it hadn't mattered. It was like I wasn't there at all, only a greedy spectator on the other side of the mirror to this girl's autoeroticism. Her lids were closed halfway, her front teeth were biting down into her lower lip, and her tiny noises may have been inaudible to human ears, but were like roaring cries of lust. I lifted my knuckle to my mouth, nearly separating my finger from my hand with my own teeth as I bore witness to her writhing in the chair.
The desire for her blood was now equally matched with the desire to slide my cock so deep inside her that she may very well split in half.
This had to stop…or rather, I didn't want to ask her to stop, because, quite frankly, I was enjoying the show too much. But, I was so hard that walking would be embarrassing, if not painful.
It was then when I recalled Emmett's tactics to pushing away an erection. As I summoned up an image of an old lady, I realized quickly that it wasn't going to work. Maybe a fat, old lady? Nope. I could see my neighbor's thigh muscles pressing together…
My country tis of thee…
Sweet land of liberty…
Of thee I sing…
I smiled to myself, ignoring the presence of her beside me and visualizing the words as I mentally sung them…slowly enunciating every syllable.
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrim's pride,
At last, I could move, and as I stole a quick glance up at the clock, I found that the bell was only a minute away.
From ev…ery mountainside…
Thank God.
Let freedom ring…
A semi was better than a raging hard on, so as soon as I felt able, I picked up my books and shot out of the classroom…just before the bell.
It was disturbing beyond words that this human girl could have this effect on me. The temptation of her blood…the lure of her body…the absence of her thoughts…
Bella Swan. She'd never said one word to me. And I couldn't risk being around her again.
Add'l disclaimer - I don't own "My Country Tis of Thee" written by Samuel Francis Smith as many of you already know, and I certainly didn't write it!